Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Rental policies?

[R Philip Dowds (rpdowds]

Individual property rights, and homeownership rights, are usually heavily 
regulated by State law, with most States believing that protection of such 
rights is deeply grounded in the federal Constitution.  In many cases, private 
contracts — like the master deed and bylaws of condo associations — can NOT be 
contrived to abrogate these rights, and if seemingly onerous provisions are 
challenged in court, they can be found null and void, despite the fact that 
some unwitting buyer put his/her signature to them.

Euro law tends to balance out communal interests and individual rights more in 
favor of community.  But let's not forget that our nation was founded by 
self-selected Euro-emigrants who were deeply opposed to the property 
distributions and ownership conventions of feudal and post-fuedal Europe.  This 
is one of the reasons why the formation of true community is such an uphill 
battle (legal and cultural) for Americans.

RPD

On Nov 8, 2011, at 9:04 PM, Sharon Villines wrote:

> 
> 
> On 8 Nov 2011, at 8:40 PM, Marty Roberts wrote:
> 
>> Many  
>> of you probably know about the law going into effect Jan. 1 that will  
>> not allow CC&R's to limit rentals if the don't already have this in  
>> their CC&R's.
> 
> I don't know about this law. What is its purpose? Where is Sebastopol.
> 
>> We are looking at a proposal that no more than 3 of our 14 houses can  
>> be rented out at any one time.  We have heard that with 50% rentals,  
>> homes would have a very hard time selling or getting financing.
> 
> Our policy on "leasing" which means renting a whole unit, owner absent is 
> posted on our website under Governance Documents.
> 
> Our limit is something like 4 of 43. I think we were recently told that above 
> 15% was an alert for the bank. Our problem would be how do we refuse the 5th 
> person who wants to rent?
> 
> We haven't been confronted with this so we don't know but those selling units 
> are quite aware of this and they do think "I need to sell now so if I can't 
> sell, I can rent before anyone else tries to rent."
> 
> We also have a limit of 3 years that a person can rent a unit. We've extended 
> this twice and refused to do it in one instance when the renters were not 
> participating in the community. In all other instances, I think the renters 
> were very active in the community. We've been very fortunate in this. 
> 
> One inadvertent advantage to having a length of time limit is that the 
> renters can be allowed to buy. If an owner keeps the unit, promising to 
> return maybe but never does, it leaves the community and the renter in limbo. 
> No one wants the renter thrown out and another unit may not be available. 
> 
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> http://www.takomavillage.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
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